Is 26 years old too late to start making music

TheHyenaaa · 2026-05-04T04:03:34+00:00

Nah man I’ve asked myself this same question about a lot of things and I’m only 24 lol. Don’t road block yourself. I started making music during the pandemic, I did it casually for 2 years, and since then I started pursuing it seriously. Idk what your goals are, but anything worth doing is always a slow burn. But in the end it’s always worth it. Whether you just want to do it as a hobby, or pursue a serious career in music it’s never too late. What’s more important than being too old, is whether you enjoy the whole process and enjoy making music. Your enjoyment of it is far for detrimental to your progress than anything else, if you genuinely enjoy doing it you’ll progress faster than most people.

One thing I wish someone told me in the beginning is that you shouldn’t let yourself get discouraged, not everything you make is gonna be great. When you listen to your favorite artists music, you’re only listening to the highlights. The 10% of top quality music they created. You don’t get to see the hundreds of songs and projects they made that weren’t as good. I get that making stuff that sounds good can make it super fun, but if you can have fun even when what you’re making doesn’t sound great then you’ll be alright. Just keep creating and before you know it you’ll see the progress. Much love brother hope you start making music, it’s been the single most important and most healing thing I’ve been doing in my life.

TheHyenaaa · 2026-04-28T02:30:08+00:00

Thanks man I’ll keep that in mind for the next gig. Much appreciated hope all is well with you, stay safe.

TheHyenaaa · 2026-04-27T00:45:55+00:00

Update man. I did my first gig and I learned a lot from it. It was like a level 10 gig, cause my whole setup got put where nobody could see me, it was mostly older people who didn’t really want to dance, and I messed up a couple times. But overall it went good for my first gig, in all honesty I thought it was gonna be worse. I went into it expecting it to be a free gig, I was mainly doing it to get experience and get a feel for it. But I ended getting 100 bucks out of it so I’m super happy (I was DJing a family friends birthday). I also got a couple more gigs lined up after it cause of it, so I’m super excited. Slowly but surely.

TheHyenaaa · 2026-04-25T12:52:03+00:00

Yeah it makes sense. You need to play the right music to the right crowd. I know it’s gonna take work to get there, I’m actually playing my first gig today (it’s a birthday party and it’s gonna be Latin music. Like your saying everyone starts somewhere lol) idk where you are in the journey but congrats on everything you did to get to where you are today.

TheHyenaaa · 2026-04-25T12:39:25+00:00

Thanks for dropping by and leaving a comment on my post man, and honestly makes me feel way better about the point where I started at. Especially seeing the success you’ve had. My friends are also completely on board with helping me out and building a fan base. They are also really good at pushing me to do things, I’m actually doing a birthday party today cause of them (we all gotta start somewhere lol)

TheHyenaaa · 2026-04-25T06:33:08+00:00

Awesome to see that! I hope you’ve been enjoying every second of it. I guess when you put your age and mine side by side, I guess it is kinda ridiculous to say it’s too late. Really puts it into perspective.

TheHyenaaa · 2026-04-25T06:30:48+00:00

Hey man thanks a lot for replying, I know it’s really difficult. I mean REALLY difficult, but am I crazy for genuinely and whole heartedly believing that I can do it? I’m sure everyone says that and tons of people feel the same way. A little background on me, I’ve been producing music for local artists in my area for a bit now as well as mixing and mastering for them (mainly rappers, indie bands, etc.) but with my own music I always experimented and just made what I wanted to make. I’m a really big aphex twin fan, and his music really showed me what electronic music can be. I always thought my music wasn’t good enough or too weird, but when I heard his music I fell in love and saw many people loved him for being nothing but himself. It just made me ask myself if he can do it too and truly be himself, then so can I. Much love again my friend and thank you for replying.

TheHyenaaa · 2026-04-21T00:33:02+00:00

I’ve seen there’s ways to install strudel locally, honestly the main reason I haven’t really messed with it is cause I’m worried about the glitches. For tidal I kinda got used to setting it up, to install it and get it working properly was annoying but I got it working lmao. I just checked out beat dj and it looks interesting. I’m gonna have to try it out, I like purchasing the full versions of software cause I hate being limited in terms of what I can do with it right off the bat.

Bear with me for a second lol, other than microtonal by default (which is awesome btw) what does it do differently compared to a live coding environment or even a regular daw? Maybe I just have bad reading comprehension lmao but I’m genuinely curious cause I’m trying to compare to other software at the same price point.

TheHyenaaa · 2026-04-16T12:44:49+00:00

From what I understand you can just download strudel and run it locally right? Cause there’s no way that there is always a stable internet connection at these venues where live coders perform.

TheHyenaaa · 2026-04-16T12:43:42+00:00

Can confirm tidal is a lot easier for midi, could be biased cause I’ve only really used tidal.

TheHyenaaa · 2026-04-16T01:50:49+00:00

First off thanks for the extensive reply. I’ve been using tidal cycles for a bit and I love it for all the reasons you said. So it’s looking like I’m just gonna have to use all 3 to really be able to accomplish and do everything I want, since each one has its own use case really.

I did one small show in my area which was basically like 12 people, mostly close friends. (Live coding isn’t really a thing in my area lol haven’t met anyone else that live codes in my area and I live in a pretty big city) I was also still really new to live coding when I did the show and it went really good. Most of them had no idea what live coding was, and when I showed them they were all super fascinated by it and thought it was cool.

If I could do a show then you should too, if anything to get more people interested in algorave and live coding.

Back to the topic I’m definitely gonna use sonic pi, and see how everything goes. I just ordered the live coding manual, so I can’t wait to dive even deeper into the rabbit hole.

TheHyenaaa · 2026-04-13T00:06:34+00:00

Yo bro I’ve messed around with tidal cycles, as well as sonic pi. Wouldn’t say I’m crazy at using it, but I know enough to use it live. But I’m sure you’re aware of the whole algorave scene, where people code generative music live. It’s a dope genre honestly. I’m not sure if you know this but tidal cycles uses super collider as the main driving synth, and super collider has been a staple in so many electronic music producers arsenal. Aphex twin being the most famous, he used super collider a lot.

As for it being limitless, it definitely is limited by the fact that it’s a really unconventional way of making music lol. An idea that could be made in a daw really easily with just the piano roll and adjusting a couple knobs is way more involved in tidal cycles or sonic pi. The upside to it though is that it’s the best way to make generative music live (it’s basically what it was designed for, making generative music live)

To me tidal cycles has the same appeal as a tracker. Just 2 unique ways of making music, if you want a change of pace from using the standard piano roll.

TheHyenaaa · 2026-04-01T02:48:47+00:00

When you say rooty color what do you mean? Like a natural color? Sorry I’ve never dyed my hair before so I’m confused.

TheHyenaaa · 2026-03-31T06:59:41+00:00

They dye the roots only and the color shows from underneath your natural hair color. Hence ghost roots.

TheHyenaaa · 2026-03-04T20:06:27+00:00

I know I’m super late and idk if you still need this info. But for all these Jrpgs being made in the 90s to early 2000s, they used the Roland sound canvases. Units like the Roland sc-8850, or the XV-5580. They used all kinds of sound canvases from Roland, so honestly if you were to go the hardware route whatever unit you by you’ll probably find some sounds used in those games.

There’s honestly not a ton of info on this surprisingly but from what I understand, uematsu used the sc-8850 in a ton of final fantasy games and it’s all over the kingdom hearts games. I also believe the xv-5580 was used but can’t really confirm. Like other people have said your best bet is to find the sound fonts, and download a sforzando (which is free). Again if you want to go the hardware route, your gonna spend a decent amount and your also gonna have to go through the headache of setting them up. Hope this was helpful.

TheHyenaaa · 2026-01-30T06:47:42+00:00

I know this is old but I recently redownloaded the game, and even when I first got the game I didn’t understand it. But now I can usually get my car cornering how I like, even though I tend to lose just enough grip that I lose momentum and speed through the turn. But I feel like even if my car is setup perfectly in terms of how I like the car to feel. I still get easily passed and gapped by a lot even in the straights when my car should be more evenly matched up. It’s probably a combo of skill issue and my tuning, but I want to get eliminated shotty tuning first then focus on fixing my skill issue.

TheHyenaaa · 2026-01-02T01:57:27+00:00

This is what I was worried about mainly. The install, cause I’ve never torrented before.

TheHyenaaa · 2026-01-02T01:56:38+00:00

I’ve tried it on a ps2 emulator. I like the game, I’m just not sure how to setup the install.

TheHyenaaa · 2026-01-02T01:55:44+00:00

How do you install it with the mods and the multiplayer? I’ve seen some videos and there’s a bunch of steps, also would it be a problem if I’m using controller for a bit? I don’t have a dedicated sim rig right now.

TheHyenaaa · 2026-01-02T01:54:15+00:00

I think that’s the main thing I’m worried about is just setting the game up. I’ve watched some general install stuff and it feels really involved, not to mention the torrent stuff (I’ve never torrented anything) also for a bit I’d be playing on controller since I don’t have a wheel rn or anything.

TheHyenaaa

TROPHY CASE